6/14 WWE NXT in Dublin – Detailed Report on Balor’s homecoming, Nakamura vs. Roode, The Revival, crowd reactions, more

WWE NXT Live Results
June 14, 2016
Dublin, Ireland at 3Arena
Report by Steve C, PWTorch VIP member

(1) Hugo Knox beat Tye Dillinger. Dillinger was over huge with the crowd and seemed to be cutting a good babyface local promo when he turned it for heel heat. The crowd still ate him up and massively favoured him over Knox. Knox won with a split-leg moonsault off the top rope.

(2) Andrade “Cien” Almas beat Wesley Blake. The crowd hated Blake and greeted him with slow chants of “Wesley” and also “Murphy’s better,” which he played into very well. I think Almas needs to drop the braces and Savio Vega get-up as people are not into this ring entrance. He turned them around, though, with the match and got a strong reaction when he put Blake away with his running-knees Bronco buster-like finisher that he used at Takeover.

(3) American Alpha (Jason Jordan & Chad Gable) beat Alexander Wolfe & Sawyer Fulton. Wolfe and Sawyer looked like bad Mad Max rejects and did not click with the crowd at all. Huge reactions for Gable and Jordan with a lot of chants and songs directed their way. Jordan seemed to love all of it as he danced along in the corner. Fulton needs some work as he seems in extremely bad shape and the crowd were all over him. The outfit he wore didn’t help things. American Alpha won with their finisher after a formulaic but very enjoyable match.

After the match, NXT tag champs The Revival came out to take some pot shots on the mic at Alpha. The challenged them to a match but then decided Alpha didn’t deserve another match and they went to leave. They eventually came back in to try to jump Jordan and Gable from behind, but they turned the tables and Dash was left in the ring to take a beating. The tag champs left after this. Dawson didn’t get physically involved and that was the last we saw of them so it’s a shame we didn’t get a match.

(4) No Way Jose beat Austin Aries. Unfortunately for Aries a lot of people used this as toilet/bar break. Outside of singing along to his music, Jose does not seem to he connecting at all. They teased a match and then started to dance to Jose’s, music which started up again only for Aries to jump him from behind and start the match. Jose ended up winning with a roll-up on Aries. The crowd was not happy and neither was Aries who sold huge frustration.

(5) NXT Women’s champion Asuka beat Peyton Royce to retain the NXT Women’s Championship. Little to no reaction for Royce, but huge love for Asuka. Lots of “Asuka’s gonna kill you” chants as expected. Asuka won with the Asuka Lock after a fairly straightforward match. She’s very impressive in-person but could have done with a more experienced opponent.

[Intermission]

Unfamiliar music hit and eventually Booby Roode came out to a big babyface reaction. I had heard he was playing a heel on the shows so far and was wondering how that would work and then I got my answer. The opening strings of Shinsuke Nakamura’s music hit and the place went insane. Everyone was on their feet and singing along to his music and cheered along with every move of his entrance routine.

(6) Shinsuke Nakamura beat Bobby Roode. A lot of this crowd came to see Shinsuke and we weren’t disappointed. Roode did his part well but this was really all about Shinsuke. Some great back and forth action which ended with a Kinshasa kick for the clean win. The crowd loved everything about this.

(7) Bayley & Carmella beat Nia Jax & Alexa Bliss in a tag team match. Everyone got good reactions in this match, which I was pleased to see, but it was clear who was the favourite. Dublin loves Bayley. Constant singing and chanting for her and there were many Carmella chants sprinkled in also. Bayley ended up putting Jax away clean with the Bayley to Belly, which surprised me to see Jax take the fall like that, but they all did a good job here. Jax is showing real signs of improvement

(8) NXT champion Samoa Joe beat Finn Balor to retain the NXT Title. Monstrous hometown reaction for Bàlor as expected. Everyone was on their feet and Finn was eating it up. Chants of “stand up if you love Bàlor” brought the entire arena to their feet several times. Great back and forth match with both men going for but missing their finishers. Joe eventually won with a roll-up and a hold of the tights to retain.

After the match Joe, came back in to attack Finn from behind. As Joe was going to hit the Musclebuster, Finn kicked him off the ropes and ended up nailing Joe with the Coup De Gras to send the crowd home happy. Finn got on the mic afterward and thanked everyone for coming and talked about how good it was to perform in front of his home crowd.

Overall Show Notes

– The show ended up being better attended than ticket sales seemed to indicate. The top sections were tarped off, but outside of the back few rows most of the other seats were filled.

– This was the first show in a long time that a large number of the crowd did not leave when the main event started. Usually we get a John Cena or Roman Reigns match on the main roster shows. Everyone stayed right to the end tonight.

– The crowd was definitely older than a normal WWE house show, but there were some younger kids there and they seemed to know most of the talent. Interestingly most of the kids cheered when Cena was shown in the video packages on the screen, but booed when Reigns was shown.